This week we had the somber task of loading our pigs onto our trailer and taking the much too quick ride to the meat processor. I've gotten to a place with farming, where I am cautious about everything. I try not to get too attached...to the garden, to the animals, to any forcasted outcome. Things go wrong. Life throws you a curve. You get knocked down. You pick yourself up again. There is an ebb and flow to it. If you are lucky, you find the rhythm and it works for you. With every new project, a part of me stands back and documents the process. I do the research. I keep track of costs and procedures. I have an eye on our timeline to make sure we are on schedule. If something isn't working, I look for the correction. I keep chipping away until it is done and a new project takes it's place. The other part of me is in the trenches, living the highs and lows that come with raising your own food. I knew the pig project would be difficult. I've always loved pigs. My parents used to raise meat pigs and as a child, they were my playmates. Funny, quirky personalities wrapped up in a gruff demeanor. Nevertheless, they were all eventually hauled away and came back as little packages that fed our family. Some 30 years later, I can still remember their names: Porkchop, Applesauce, Ribsy, Hamlet, Tidbit. Gone, but not forgotten. So it went with our pigs, Grunt and Snort. As they were unloaded into the holding pen, I felt my heart sink. I switched into my third eye mode, the Documentor. I noticed they had been marked with orange chalk, a big "X" on each back. There were other pigs in the pen and they had colorful markings also: blue, orange, white, X's and O's. As they cheerfully greeted each other, it was like a pig playdate. Snort walked over to see what we were doing. I watched the processor write our name down on a list next to "orange X". I glanced back to the pen and saw our pair socializing with the others and silently said my goodbyes. It was time to go. The ride home seemed much longer. I played the pig-reel in my head, the whole process start to finish. This "project" had gone well. No tragedies or disasters. The pigs were healthy and lived a low stress life on our farm. We interacted with them daily and enjoyed their antics. They were a big part of our summer and our year. We will miss them and honor their contribution. Raising meat is a bittersweet practice. Last night I received a call from one of our pork customers, thanking us for the quality meat that their family was now enjoying and asking to be put on the list for the next time we have pork available. This is the whole reason we are raising pigs in the first place. Quality meat. Our pigs ate only the best organic food we could buy, our own organic eggs and our own garden fresh produce. We can't find that quality at the store, we can only raise it ourselves. So it is bittersweet, but we agree that the process is necessary. It's just hard. Goodbye Grunt and Snort. XOXOStop by and see us at our facebook home www.facebook.com/thepocketfarmer. Hope to see you there.

I’m still trying to wrap my head around it. It was intense. It felt a little lawless. It made me sad. It was a long hard day. This weekend we culled and processed 12 roosters from our flock. If you have the idea that we are used to this sort of thing, you’d be wrong. It was our first time. And we had to steel ourselves to do it. But it had become necessary and in truth, we had planned it from the day we ordered our chicks last winter. Still, it wasn’t easy. A quick look back at our path to this point: Our Goal. We planned to raise a modest flock of egg laying hens along with a few roosters that would give us the option of raising new chicks. As our hens aged, we would be able to replace them. We also planned to raise and butcher any roosters that we hatched, to supplement our poultry consumption. It was an adventurous plan, by our standards, as we are both animal lovers torn by the idea of trying to be sustainable at the same time. Outside of my comfort zone, I am nevertheless pushing myself down this road, as it is “logical” when you consider that we are regular consumers of poultry products on the commercial market. We have the space, we have the ability, so Why Not? Right? Our chick order, in the Spring, came with an additional “bonus” batch of baby roosters. (You can read about that here: (http://blog.poultrykeeper.com/pocket-farmer-blog/its-a-girl-2/ ) As this batch of additional males grew and matured, in the coop, it started to resemble a war zone. The boys fought constantly and there were casualties. First we had lost feathers. Then there was bloodshed. One rooster broke his leg. Another one was pinned and pecked so violently that he sustained a spinal injury. He never walked again and succumbed to his injuries. One rooster had half his comb pulled off. I heard screaming (yes, it does sound like that) from the pens all day. We had to separate and mediate, nurse and fret over what had become of our precious flock. I am guilty of letting it go on too long. We had an overfull plate of responsibilities that were simultaneously demanding of our time and the rooster situation was an ominous brooding cloud over my head that I wasn’t quite sure what to do with. Pulling the plug on these guys was inevitable, but still I hesitated. When I finally made the call, I found out something disturbing. None of the meat processors in our area handle poultry. Really? How did this information escape me until now? Who is going to do it then? Uh oh. You can learn how to do just about anything on You Tube. Luckily, there are some very helpful people that put together videos on this subject. Once we knew the job we were facing, we watched the videos over and over until there was a familiarity with the process. We roughed out a plan. I purchased some basic equipment (large pot, tubs, knives). We bought a freezer. We set a date. On Saturday, we woke up early, ran a few errands, tended to some basic chores. We spoke very little. I was nervous and anxious. I didn’t want the fact that we were novices to create any disadvantage or suffering on the part of the birds we were culling. I was worried about my ability to follow through with the project. I had a heavy heart and a weak stomach as we set up our little camp. The time had come. It turns out that our preparation was very effective. We slipped into our roles and became an efficient team of poultry processors. Neither one of us balked. The birds were handled calmly, with respect. We didn’t rush, we worked methodically, it all went pretty smoothly. The preliminary butchering was handled first, outside in our camp. Then the birds were brought inside for final processing. I worked into the evening, until it was finished. Then we cleaned up. There is a strange sound outside now, it is the sound of silence. We still have roosters crowing in the morning, but the screams that tormented me are gone. Our remaining roosters are even tempered and docile. There is no more fighting, peace has been restored. Odd coincidence that the day we took the roosters, is the same day one of our hens offered up our first egg. Today we have a second egg. It seems we have turned the page on our chicken adventure. The babies are all grown up. It is now Phase II. I won’t ever be able to buy a dozen eggs or a pound of chicken at the supermarket again, without replaying the events of the past 5 months over in my head. It’s been quite a journey. I am deeply moved, humbled and forever changed by this experience. I hope to have better perspective on it someday, but for now I’ll just say this: I am thankful, tired, relieved and still a little shell shocked. I think we did the best we could. If you’d like a better summation, I’m sorry, I don’t have one. Maybe tomorrow.This post originally appeared 8/16/2011 at http://blog.poultrykeeper.com/pocket-farmer-blog/the-boys/ . Reprinted with permission.Be sure the check us out at our Facebook home: www.facebook.com/thepocketfarmer . Hope to see you there!

Last weekend I was invited to join in a corn harvest party. I don’t know about you, but I LOVE those kinds of invitations! Especially because I didn’t plant corn this year, due to time constraints. So, what is a corn harvest party? Well first you need corn. A lot of corn.

A sunny morning, some helping hands and a great story teller.

It helps to have a large basement where you can make the mess, but any kitchen will work with the right equipment. You'll need a stove and some big pots.

A cooling station.

A strong arm.

A freezer.

Good times. Thanks to Gary and Diane for hosting this event. Two warm and generous people, willing to share their bounty. In this hot dry growing season where corn has struggled to survive, it’s the best party I’ve been to all year! Thank you! :) Join us at www.facebook.com/thepocketfarmer for more harvest excitement! Hope to see you there!

After watching some of the incredible athletic performances during the Summer Olympics, I have come to realize that I have some Olympic talent of my own. I can grow (and make it look effortless) spectacular weeds in my garden! In fact, the weeds are so incredible, that I've lost track of the plants I was intending to grow. Somewhere in there, is my garden.

Clockwise from top left: green beans, potatoes, ground cherries, peppers and carrots. Can you see them? No? Me neither. It's just a tangled green mess. So I decided to sort it all out and at the end of the day I found gold medal award winning weeds that are just begging to be recognized in their specialized categories. I present to you, in no particular order...

Gold Medal: Best Sprawl

This lovely crabgrass speciman spanned 4 feet! (Medium sized tomato there to give you scale). You could have had a picnic on it. But you could also say it was vertically challenged. So in the next category, I bring you...

Gold Medal: Best Pretender

This 6 foot tall lambs quarter was doing it's best impression of being the green pole bean which is now hiding behind it. Another great weed strategy is to just become so large that it can't be easily removed...

Gold Medal: Best in Hurricane

This tree trunk like weed which also grew to be about 6 feet tall (I honestly don't know how I missed it!) had no plans to be uprooted and had sent out stabilizing roots 2 feet in all directions. And finally...

Gold Medal: Best in Show

This sweet flower has popped up all over the garden and threatens to drown out the other plants with it's sunny disposition. I hated to do it, but I had to remove some of these to clear the canopy. Now that the back end of the garden has been reclaimed, I was able to find where a couple of my potato plant volunteers had been and dug up these little nuggets.

I also had the opportunity to plant some of my back-up starts that had been homeless. Even though it's late in the season, everything has been growing at an accelerated rate due to the extreme heat. Might as well grow as though winter isn't coming, right? I'm betting that you have some gold medal contenders in your garden. Snap a photo and post to our FB page, so we can all share in the glory of our olympic gardens! Facebook: www.facebook.com/thepocketfarmer

Hi, I'm Sue Pranskus, and this is my sometime blog. It's mostly about my attempts to "green-up" my life. On our little farm we experiment with livestock, gardening, building, repurposing and anything else that we find interesting. Born and bred on the West Coast, I am living in the Midwest by choice, not circumstance. I have built a life based largely on core values and loosely on whimsy. It's that whimsy, though, that gets me in trouble every time!